Earlier this year, IFPI announced that they had reached agreement with MasterCard, Visa and the City of London Police to cooperate against “pirate sites” and those selling unauthorized music.

Under the deal, IFPI investigators hand evidence of copyright infringement to the police who then engage the payment processors in order to cut off financial services.

In July, PayPal announced they were joining the scheme and today there is a further new recruit.

“PhonepayPlus, the body that regulates premium rate services (PRS) in the UK, is working with the City of London Police and IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, to proactively prevent online copyright infringement,” said the regulator in an announcement.

Under the arrangement, IFPI and the police will inform PhonepayPlus about sites claimed to be selling unlicensed music. These details will be passed to companies offering premium phone and SMS services in order that they may avoid doing business with them.

Many piracy sites, particularly those in eastern Europe, Ukraine and Russia, allow their customers to pay for music using these services.

PhonepayPlus has issued an update to its document titled Provision of illegal music downloads using premium rate service billing which is directed at all premium rate service providers.

TorrentFreak has requested a list of the sites to be barred. We’ll post it here when/if we receive a copy.